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2026-10-14 Economy

Energy company was warned data centers risked power crisis that now threatens blackouts in 13 states

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Posted by Skidmark 2026-10-14 04:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [224 views ] Top

1 Trump Energy Department issues emergency order to prevent blackouts across 13 states amid unusual October heat

The Trump administration has issued an emergency order aimed at preventing potential blackouts across 13 states as unseasonably warm October temperatures strain the electrical grid serving more than 60 million Americans.

The Department of Energy authorized PJM Interconnection, a regional grid operator, to use additional power generation resources as rising electricity demand coincides with scheduled maintenance at power plants and transmission facilities.

The order, issued Monday under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, takes effect Tuesday and remains in place through Friday, Oct. 16. It allows certain generating facilities to operate beyond normal restrictions if needed to maintain electricity supplies.

Posted by Skidmark 2026-10-14 04:05|| 2026-10-14 04:05|| Front Page Top

2 This article about Loudoun County and data centers touches upon why the energy challenges exist in Virginia: https://townhall.com/columnists/elicia-brand/2026/10/12/loudoun-county-says-it-wants-to-stop-data-centers-juli-briskman-knows-she-cant-n2684548

Posted by Airandee 2026-10-14 06:33|| 2026-10-14 06:33|| Front Page Top

3
FACTS FOR THOUGHT
Say in 5 years when many of these Data Spy Centers are online. Will there be enough electrical power and water supplied to handle their demands? Without impacting the common citizens?

A typical 1 Gigawatt Nuke or Hydro power plant generally takes 10+ years to plan, approve, build and activate for production. Then there are the issues of water to cool, or power the electrical plants. Then the issues of dealing with a tsunami of Law-Fare, Environmental issues, Eco-System protesters, then the voters feeling the impact the centers and power plants will cause.

BTW: A typical US family house uses about 850+ kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month. A typical American family uses about 300 gallons of water per day.

Some of these data spy centers will use enough, to power 200,000+ homes, and will use 15 Million to 48 Million PLUS gal/day as coolant.

So doing some quick basic math, should the US Home Renters/Owners and voters get use to brown-outs and being told NOT to use their water for outside things lawns, pools, car washing, limit showers, toilet flushes and etc...?

Posted by NN2N1 2026-10-14 06:38|| 2026-10-14 06:38|| Front Page Top

4 They manufactured a crisis over 2 decades by systemstically overloading the grid through legislation, innovation, development and political manipulation. The end goal is to get the mini nukes fast tracked. Prototypes are already in the field. Corporate utilities will be set up to provide power and backfeed the grid, slowly public utilities will wither and die. So the same corp’s that built the DC’s to support the AI running your thermostat and all the other tech in your life, will also be the sole provider if it’s power.

Water for cooling they are already solving for, that was simply a forced error. They went cheap until someone cared to complain and then began investing in solutions.

Posted by Jefe101 2026-10-14 08:17|| 2026-10-14 08:17|| Front Page Top

5 https://www.nucnet.org/news/microsoft-backed-fusion-company-begins-work-on-washington-nuclear-fusion-plant-7-4-2025

https://www.army.mil/article-amp/294891/army_reaches_agreement_with_private_industry_for_nuclear_micro_reactors

Notice 2028 as the dates. Remember some states set electric car goals on the early 2030’s s few years ago. Prior to that decksration Seattle stopped permitting new gas stations and renewing existing ones. Concurrently in Seattle 5/2 housing begsn being built with ev chargers in every stall. At full capacity the garage would consume more electricity charging than all condos. using all power combined. But they required so much demand, there was no power source for the garage ev chargers. And that’s one of many. There is and has been a plan.

Posted by Jefe101 2026-10-14 08:29|| 2026-10-14 08:29|| Front Page Top

6 Why not work on developing low powered processors and peripherals?

For example, AMD processors use far less power than Intel processors for the same amount of work!

Less power required, less energy needed, also less cooling issues.

Posted by Seeking Cure For Ignorance 2026-10-14 08:33|| 2026-10-14 08:33|| Front Page Top

7 Once they get the necessary legislation for the reactors I suspect you will see that appear. Look at the the legal framework. They started in states where they exercise tremendous power, like CA, OR and WA. State and local legislation began strangling cost effective power production with major utilities; PSE is forced to sell its MT coal mines to replace with less efficient more expensive renewables, wind and solar. Then develop and build out that infrastructure. At the same time LNG restriction legislation lands. In WA PSE has LNG as a power source. Dams are being attacked, Seattle city light has 40 dams in addition to PSE’s. Mind you PSE currently has a net surplus of power they sell outside of West Wa and even to Canada. Now PSE users will see a 25% increase in their piwer bills over the next 3 years to pay for all this. Only because of state green legislation. First they get the states inline, then work the Federsl legislation. Then you’ll see your energy efficient chips, because then it will be best for them, not now. They like WY, guess why… it’s not because of all the water..,overbuilt power infrastructure to support more power flow through. WY’s existing grid can handle 2x or more its currently demand. Only a few States halve this. The rest must be built out.

Posted by Jefe101 2026-10-14 09:10|| 2026-10-14 09:10|| Front Page Top

8 Lots of mini-reactors and electric cars, and my dream (one of them) comes true.

Posted by Grom the Reflective 2026-10-14 11:02|| 2026-10-14 11:02|| Front Page Top

9 BTW: A typical US family house uses about 850+ kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month. A typical American family uses about 300 gallons of water per day.

I'd check those numbers.

My heat pump running AC 24/7 during Aug/26 with day temps @110-120 and nights in the 90s cost me around $500 for a 4000sqft single story ranch.

I mostly use pond or 'black' water for irrigation so 300gal/day is also way high.

Posted by Skidmark 2026-10-14 15:10|| 2026-10-14 15:10|| Front Page Top

10 ^ I expect they take ALL water usage, including agri and industrial and divide by # of houses. 300 seems WAY too high

Posted by Frank G 2026-10-14 18:34|| 2026-10-14 18:34|| Front Page Top

11 - most of the new data centers have their own electrical gas powered generators;

- the grid potential was threatened because a number of baseload plants were out for maintenance

- these were scheduled months ago based on the expected demand but today 14 Oct. was unusually and unexpectedly (at least back in Aug when the scheduling occurred) hot over a wide area within the mid west and mid atlantic thus increasing the demand for air conditioning.

Posted by Lord Garth 2026-10-14 19:07|| 2026-10-14 19:07|| Front Page Top

12
For those readers doubting the "Typical" home uses 300 Gallon on average per day.

Type in "Typical home water usage amounts" into D2D or Google. Then pick one of the dozens of data sources.

Or you can just checkout the EPA Site Data: https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/pubs/indoor.html

Posted by NN2N1 2026-10-14 19:38|| 2026-10-14 19:38|| Front Page Top

13 13.7% leaks? FRO

Posted by Frank G 2026-10-14 20:35|| 2026-10-14 20:35|| Front Page Top

14 300 flushes(+-)?
2-30 min showers
5 loads of laundry
Plates, pots, pans in the dishwasher

Every day?
If the EPA didn't have gallons to count, what would they do, tax diesel?

Posted by Skidmark 2026-10-14 20:47|| 2026-10-14 20:47|| Front Page Top

15
Like I said ... For a typical household ,as stated by our US gov and many other sources.

Do I use 300 gallons a day? No... But my household is not typical as defined by the US Gov either.

Posted by NN2N1 2026-10-14 21:52|| 2026-10-14 21:52|| Front Page Top

16 New a guy, had a post divorce girlfriend. Said girls son, when visiting, takes a 32ozer of ice water to the shower, covered cup with a straw. He asks the sister wtf is up with the that. She says he’s in the shower so long he gets thirsty. I ask how long? He says til the water goes cold. I said shut that shit down. He says I did. Then we complain about the new gen for a while. Reality is our boys need white noise from all the gaming bullshit. 30 min easy in a shower daily…try til it goes cold.

Posted by Jefe101 2026-10-14 22:30|| 2026-10-14 22:30|| Front Page Top

17 With a Mr Fusion(tm) in your home, you never run out of hot water. Electric cars make a lot more sense, too.

Posted by SteveS 2026-10-14 22:35|| 2026-10-14 22:35|| Front Page Top

18 There nothing wrong with the idea or tech, the issue is the master. Hypothetically speaking of course, is an elected body “accountable” to the people or a for profit corp more desirable? In the end it’s our choice.

Posted by Jefe101 2026-10-14 22:44|| 2026-10-14 22:44|| Front Page Top

22:44 Jefe101
22:35 SteveS
22:30 Jefe101
21:52 NN2N1
20:47 Skidmark
20:35 Frank G
20:13 trailing wife
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19:38 NN2N1
19:31 DarthVader
19:07 Lord Garth
18:42 49 Pan
18:34 Frank G
18:01 Lord Garth
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16:07 Gomez Poodle9784
15:52 Gomez Poodle9784
15:11 Skidmark
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14:48 Thing From Snowy Mountain
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